delicate
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Contents |
English [edit]
Etymology [edit]
From Middle English delicat, from Latin delicatus (“giving pleasure, delightful, soft, luxurious, delicate, in Medieval Latin also fine, slender”), from delicia, usually in plural deliciae (“pleasure, delight, luxury”), from delicere (“to allure”), from de (“away”) + lacere (“to allure, entice”).
Pronunciation [edit]
Adjective [edit]
delicate (comparative more delicate, superlative most delicate)
- Easily damaged or requiring careful handling.
- Those clothes are delicate
- The negotiations were very delicate
- Characterized by a fine structure or thin lines.
- Her face was delicate
- The spider wove a delicate web
- There was a delicate pattern of frost on the window
- Intended for use with fragile items.
- Set the washing machine to the delicate cycle
- Of weak health, easily sick.
- (informal) Unwell, especially because of having drunk too much alcohol.
- Please don't speak so loudly - I'm feeling a bit delicate this morning
- This word needs a definition. Please help out and add a definition, then remove the text
{{rfdef}}.- 2012 April 23, Angelique Chrisafis, “François Hollande on top but far right scores record result in French election”, the Guardian:
- The final vote between Hollande and Sarkozy now depends on a delicate balance of how France's total of rightwing and leftwing voters line up.
- 2012 April 23, Angelique Chrisafis, “François Hollande on top but far right scores record result in French election”, the Guardian:
Related terms [edit]
Synonyms [edit]
- (easily damaged): fragile
Translations [edit]
easily damaged or requiring careful handling
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characterized by a fine structure or thin lines
of weak health, easily sick
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unwell, especially because of having drunk too much alcohol
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
Translations to be checked
Noun [edit]
delicate (plural delicates)
- A delicate item of clothing, especially underwear or lingerie.
- Don't put that in with your jeans: it's a delicate!
- (obsolete) A choice dainty; a delicacy.
- With abstinence all delicates he sees. — Dryden.
- (obsolete) A delicate, luxurious, or effeminate person.
- All the vessels, then, which our delicates have, — those I mean that would seem to be more fine in their houses than their neighbours, — are only of the Corinth metal. — Holland.
External links [edit]
- delicate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- delicate in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
Italian [edit]
Adjective [edit]
delicate f
- feminine plural of delicato
Anagrams [edit]
Latin [edit]
Adjective [edit]
dēlicāte
- vocative masculine singular of dēlicātus
Romanian [edit]
Adjective [edit]
delicate
- feminine pluralnominative form of delicat
- feminine pluralaccusative form of delicat
- neuter pluralnominative form of delicat
- neuter pluralaccusative form of delicat
Categories:
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Latin
- English terms derived from Medieval Latin
- English adjectives
- English informal terms
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with obsolete senses
- 1000 English basic words
- Italian adjective forms
- Latin adjective forms
- Romanian adjective forms
